Your Fool, Forever and For Always
by ncfan
Summary: Lee would do anything for Sakura. /Because I love her./


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Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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On the bar floor, a couple dances. The radio rolls out a familiar, feverish tune, and the shadows falling give the semblance of numerous other couples dancing, undulating in time to the music, almost completely unaware of their movements and what they are doing.

Lee envies the young couple, the small, dark-haired woman and the fair-haired man, because they are able to be together, to be perfectly content and because they don't seem to have a care in the world at the moment. He would give anything to be out on that dance floor, to be sweeping around the polished wooden floor unaware as the shadows take flight all around.

Lee does not ask for anything to drink. He knows how alcohol upsets his delicate system, and how much of a cheap drunk he is. All it takes is one sip, and he's completely out of it, destroying everything in his path regardless of value or size.

He can't drink, but on this night, he wants to.

He wants to drink his pain away, to forget about everything and live untroubled for one night. Lee just wants to cast his memories to the water, but he _can't._

He can't forget his life, and he can't forget _her_.

Lee has a problem. In extreme terms, an addiction. An addiction to rejection.

Even after Sakura rejects him again and again, Lee just keeps coming back. It isn't a matter of choice; he can't stop it, and to be honest, he isn't trying. It's a rushing river, this addiction, and Lee's just going with the flow.

Lee can't get Sakura out of his head. He thinks about her day in, day out; the only time he doesn't is in the midst of a battle because then Lee is so single-minded that nothing but the fight even remotely occupies his mind.

But in those empty hours, Sakura is all Lee thinks about. She is brilliant and strong. She is vibrant, shining, sinuous and elegant. She is beautiful. She is, simply, Sakura.

And sometimes it feels as though she barely knows he's alive.

Sakura's life is made up of two things: her loyalty to the village, and balancing out her sisterly concern for Naruto and her desperate want to bring Sasuke back to Konoha (And in this, Lee would give anything to be in Naruto's place if it would make Sakura happy). And there is no room in this life for Lee.

He has pressed his suit. Oh, yes, Lee has asked Sakura to go out with him. He has professed his desire to protect her, forever if need be, and sure enough, to each request there is a rejection.

"_I don't need to be protected."_

"_No, I don't want to go out with you! Do you ever give up?!"_

No, he does not give up. Because Lee just doesn't give up. Each rejection rips him apart, tears him to pieces, but at the same time, it simply makes the balked passion grow stronger.

Because there is something Lee hasn't told Sakura yet. He's not sure that she knows, though he's sure everyone else knows (Because despite what appearances may say, Lee is not an idiot; he knows that he is an open book, on a Naruto-like scale).

Every time she says "No", the addiction deepens, wedging deep within the fibers of his being, and Lee slips further off that slope. But he allows himself to stay cheerful, because even when Lee despairs, he dares to hope that maybe, just maybe, there will be a day when Sakura feels the same way about him as he does her (And Lee either doesn't know or doesn't care how remote a possibility this is; because Sakura's heart will always belong to another). He hopes that maybe she'll feel just an inkling of what he feels for her.

Lee's heart beats for one person, and one person only. He wants to be the person who laughs with her, the one who cheers her up when she's sad and holds her when she cries. He wants to be the one who protects her and fights by her side. He would fight for her, bleed and die for her.

Even when she rejects and burns him, even when she leaves the addiction uncured, Lee would do anything for Sakura. _Because I love her._


End file.
